


Heed the Voice of Honor

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Advice, Chivalry, Fairness, Gen, Guidance, Honor, Justice, Lies, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 16:16:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17410130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Gareth encourages Wyldon to heed the voice of honor and allow Kel to remain as a page at the end of her probationary year.





	Heed the Voice of Honor

Heed the Voice of Honor 

It wasn’t a surprise to Gareth when Wyldon sought him out at the end of another year’s camping trip with the pages. Wyldon would often visit him at this time of year as if the conclusion of the camping trip marked a milestone that invited Wyldon to reflect on the year in the pages’ wing—what had worked well, what hadn’t, and what changes he would implement to improve what hadn’t. Gareth wouldn’t judge or even advise. He would just listen attentively as the only person in the realm who could truly understand the weight of the position Wyldon was in, so it was a surprise to him when Wyldon said, “I have need of your counsel, Your Grace.” 

“I’m always happy to provide it.” Gareth inclined his head. He was an elder statesman now, having abandoning the governing of the kingdom, the fighting to protect its borders and people, and the education of its children to those who were younger than him but weren’t young. His role as the head of the Council of Lords was merely to share his opinions—rooted in a long lifetime of experience—and then step back to allow the rest of the council the space to make their decision. He told his grandchildren, grand-nieces, and grand-nephews stories with the the morals hidden inside like a nut in a shell so they wouldn’t be bored listening to him but would discover these kernels of truth whenever they needed. He guided his son and nephew, who were more willing to listen to him as men than they ever had been as boys, but allowed them to determine the fate of the realm, because that was their role now. His place was only to advise and to pray that he was good at it. 

Wyldon was silent for long enough that Gareth began to think that Wyldon wouldn’t seek his counsel after all before asking abruptly, “Did you know Sir Alanna was a female before the entire court did?” 

Gareth had assumed for years that Wyldon never posed this question because he feared the answer. If that was the case, he didn’t flinch from asking it now. 

“No.” Gareth no longer felt embarrassed by the memory of how Alanna had tricked him or hurt by the fact that his own son had kept Alanna’s identity secret from him. Instead he felt vague amusement at the recollection of his shock at being caught with his breeches down. It had been good, he decided with the benefit of hindsight, for him to have a public reminder that he didn’t know everything. It had helped keep him humble as Roanna would say. “I was as astonished as the rest of the court when her gender was revealed.” 

“So she deceived you as she did the rest of us.” Wyldon sounded relieved that Gareth’s honor hadn’t been sullied by association with Alanna’s lie, and there was a curl to his lips that suggested Gareth had confirmed every dubious belief he harbored about Alanna’s integrity. 

“All pages lie to their training masters unless they are truly so clumsy that they fall down as often as they claim.” Gareth dryly pointed out a truth he thought Wyldon should have known after listening to a hundred pages explain their bruises and broken bones in the most uncreative fashion. 

“With respect, that’s different,” responded Wyldon, stiff as a shield. “It’s more a tradition than a lie, Your Grace.” 

“It’s a tradition where a page tries to outsmart the training master. That’s all Alanna did—outsmart the training master. I can’t blame her for that.” When Wyldon made a that seemed to state he wouldn’t have been so generous if he were in Gareth’s shoes, Gareth arched an eyebrow. “Surely you aren’t going to try to tell me that you never tried to outwit me, Wyldon?” 

“Not about anything as important as whether I was male or female.” Wyldon’s flushed cheeks cast his hurrock scars into harsh relief. 

“Are our bodies really so important?” Gareth remembered a time in a distant, ever-receding past when he had thought so—when he had labored for endless hours to keep his body and mind sharp, well-honed blades forever prepared to serve king and country. Now that his skin was sagging and his bones were creaking under the pressure of his own frail flesh, he had come to the understanding that bodies didn’t matter. Bodies would soon be ghosts, nothing more than spirits in the Peaceful Realms, and he doubted that spirits had genders. 

“In battle, yes.” Wyldon’s jaw clenched like a defiant, closed fist. “Women are weaker than men. They need our protection. It wouldn’t be chivalrous to send them into war as if they were men.” 

“Not every woman will find it chivalrous if you try to prevent her from entering a battle she wants to fight.” Gareth recalled all too clearly how Roanna forced him to see that after Alanna’s gender was revealed to the court, reminding him with a sharp elbow to the ribs that Alanna didn’t wish to be treated with the respect owed a proper young lady when Gareth had worried that he might have behaved ungallantly toward her during her knighthood training by treating her as a lad. “I hear the Mindelan girl acquitted herself well in the fight against the spidrens.” 

Raoul had certainly sounded impressed with her calm courage and cleverness when he described the spidren battle to Gareth. 

“She did.” Wyldon wore the hard expression of a man forcing himself to be fair. “She almost always does.” 

His point made, Gareth said nothing, letting quiet fall between them until Wyldon broke it by asking, “Would you have allowed Alanna to train as a page if you had known she was a girl?” 

“I don’t know.” Gareth of course wanted to believe that he would have done the right thing—the honorable, just thing—and allowed Alanna to train as if she were a boy even if he had known that she was a girl but he could never be certain. That was both a mercy and a haunting question as he aged. “That’s the difference between our situations. I can only hope that I would have acted honorably and fairly. You will have to know whether you behaved honorably and fairly.” 

“And what is the honorable and fair thing to do?” Wyldon cut bluntly to the heart of a question that Gareth couldn’t answer. 

“You must decide that for yourself.” Gareth understood that his reply would frustrate Wyldon, who had always preferred straightforward directions of how he should proceed because he was as devoted to doing his duty as Alanna was to changing the world, but Wyldon was too old to be schooled in honor like a page. Gareth would be overstepping his bounds if he did anything more than watch, hoping that his teachings served Wyldon in wrestling with his conscience. “I don’t doubt that you will heed the voice of honor, however. You always do.” 

Wyldon looked more burdened than pleased by Gareth’s praise as if it established a standard that Wyldon could never meet but at last he said decisively, “I’ll permit her to stay if she wishes, but I’ll advise her against doing so, addressing her as if she were one of my own daughters.”


End file.
